+38 098 079 69 73   +38 (044) 288 5075    Open Policy Foundation

News

news-photo

Displaced fates, displaced universities: for those who do not believe

July 18, 2019, 4:09 p.m.

Displaced fates, displaced universities: for those who do not believe

 

The road to Starobilsk persistently demonstrates that we are in Ukraine. As if nature itself, contrary to politics, wants to prove once again: the Luhansk region is Ukraine. Yellow-blue landscapes stretch as a long bead, changing into green plots of pines: fields of orange sunflowers are running a many kilometers long strip on the background of blue sky.

And suddenly they end abruptly with pine landings. Where a hare runs along the road, in front of a car. Another one is just sitting by the road and watching ... what it thinks ... “interlopers...”?)

 

And the pheasants are bravehearts. They do not hesitate to go straight to courtyards of houses to eat wheat with chicken.

Renovated sections of the road and neat houses with flower beds, street posts with lighting from solar panels give a sense of surrealism when it is difficult to believe that there has been a war here for 5 years. But soon, there is a road congestion, which reminds us that there is an elevator near, and therefore, many trucks and road completely destroyed by heavy trucks. It was destroyed by tanks first and then finished with trucks full of grain. So be it. It had better not to have tanks again, not to return from there, from the rivers, the war with the horror of death, violence and looting due to the restored bridge near Stanytsa, fortifications left by the Ukrainian army.

Therefore, when they say about peace, then here in the Luhansk region, you understand the price of this peace a little bit in other dimensions. However, how many of us, residents of peaceful territories and policymakers are asking themselves about the feelings of those residents of villages, small towns that we left when the Ukrainian troops were withdrawn? They remember a little about brothers, about the price of blood, which is given for a bunch of land in the Luhansk region. But what about the peaceful people, who for these 5 years began to believe in “cimics” (CIMIC - Civil-Military Cooperation) and “ZeSeUs” (ZSU- Armed Forces of Ukraine).

And who calculates the risks of making such decisions. I have no illusions about the mood of the citizens, whom every day here, on the Ukrainian soil, Russian television and radio (yes, Russian) tell about their Ukrainian enemies. Therefore, there are graduates of schools in our territories (including teachers’ children), who enter higher education institutions (HEIs) there or in Russia. But…

But before judging them, you would see the eyes and back of those who came here to the “Donbas-Ukraine” Education Centers in Starobilsk from Stanichno-Luhanskyi and Popasnyanskyi districts, territories along the front line, which me, as the representative of the Open Policy Foundation, an organization that is part of the Education Cluster and a partner of UN organizations, has to call it politically correctly as a “contact line”. However, I will write a footnote. I do not write this article as a report on the UNICEF project. And, apparently, I have the right to have a personal position. So, I was struck by these lowered eyes, lowered shoulders and their bent backs.

I was similarly impressed by students of the 2nd and 3rd years of study, who yesterday participated in the press-breakfast in Starobilsk at the Luhansk National Agrarian University. During the years of studying here, they strengthened their backs, they are already looking directly into eyes, not only in my but also to cameras, when they tell about their successful trajectories at Ukrainian universities. And this is really a miracle.

 

Listen to their stories.

 

Study in Ukraine! Choose the future!

 

Meetings with students, lecturers, rectors, vice-rectors, deans; informal conversations without a dictaphones and cameras give a lot of ground for considering this miracle. 

Here is one of the stories about a girl from the occupied territories, who came with a Givi tattoo, and after 2 years she began to actively participate in the public work of a university. There are already new traditions related to the flag of Ukraine. And patriotism here is measured not by the number of embroidered clothes in the wardrobe, but by the price of choice between life and death, and Ukraine.

For this one day in the Luhansk region, we have visited more than 10 educational institutions, lyceums, colleges and universities. One of the flags from the Luhansk airport, which was protected by Brigade 80 from Lviv, hangs on the wall in the rector’s office of the Luhansk Taras Shevchenko National University.

 

 

This flag was taken out by one of the lecturers on his body, moving through checkpoints, at the risk of his life. Shot, with traces of blood. Words were also missing in the University's Museums of Geology and Zoology and in the Luhansk Local History Museum, which were evacuated to Starobilsk.

Lecturers brought more than 40 kg of geological samples from there in backpacks. This is also a small heroic act. And next to it, there are samples of fossil wood, which are already collected by students after 2015 during practical scientific expeditions here, in Novopokrovsk and Starobilsk.

It is Tolik among them. He is a student-geographer from the Stanychno-Luhanskyi district, who this year firstly left his oblast. For the first time, he, aged 18, traveled by train. He was only 5 days at the International Green School in the Carpathians. You would have seen his eyes and shoulders, his laugh, organizational skills and faith. You know, upon seeing these eyes, I am ashamed not to believe. 

Here is the information for those who do not believe in displaced universities and the “Donbas-Ukraine” system.

 

For these twenty-four hours in the Luhansk region, I visited only one dormitory of the displaced Luhansk Taras Shevchenko National University. This dormitory was renovated; it has a modern kitchen and a study room.

Renovated dormitory of LNU named after Taras Shevchenko

 

I also visited an academic building, where the dean's office of the Faculty of Physics seemed, in size, a store room of the chemistry teacher at the school. In 2015, the rector was not ashamed to sit with three vice-rectors in one office, and a waste-paper basket (there was no place already) was simply under one of their chairs. So, this team is not afraid to take responsibility. Responsibility for that flag. And for the repair of the premises, which funds will come from the State Fund for Regional Development in September! And it is necessary to finish repair work on December 31. Finish with signed acts.

And they must be prepared that in these 4 years they will have to change not 12 accounts in social networks but 12 apartments (flats/houses); they can even have three in one: a kitchen, a toilet and a shower in one room, which is not heated in winter. Be prepared to chat with your favorite granddaughter for 5 years on Skype only.

So, is each of us ready to accept such a challenge for Ukraine? Without fanfare. Therefore, on my very deep conviction, which is growing every year, we must not demand the quality of education now from the displaced higher educational institutions. We must finally understand 3 simple things about displaces universities.

First. Displaced universities and colleges are, above all, a space to build peace and trust, and to cherish common values ​​among young people. And this is the STRATEGY of the state if it does not choose the path of the kamikaze.

Second. In the absence of minimal opportunities and the face of extreme risks, many of the displaced universities have already formed POWERFUL TEAMS that can make an innovative breakthrough in education and technology. (One of the secrets of Israel's success, as a nation's startup, is the lack of natural resources and hostile environments, the huge motivation and faith of teams to make a MIRACLE - an innovative oasis among the desert. And now the military-defense potential of Israel is no less powerful than innovation in medicine, agriculture and IT industry). At the same time, there are teams (together with some NGOs and local officials) that are currently working on discrediting displaced universities to divvy premises and land up.

Third. The main thing. Here, in the East, the PATRIOT TEAMS are formed. Can we betray them? Can we take away a huge human intellectual resource from Ukraine? Teams, which have a huge motivation to work on UKRAINE.

 

Kyiv-Slovyansk-Starobilsk-Aydar-Kyiv.

July 15-16, 2019.

The blog is written based on the results of a trip to the Luhansk region and the press-breakfast in Starobilsk. The organizer is the Open Policy Foundation with the support of UNICEF, in partnership with the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine. More information is available at http://openpolicy.org.ua/donbass-crimea/

Iryna Zhdanova, General Director of the Open Policy Foundation, a participant of the 42nd session of the Intergovernmental Panel of Experts (IPCC), PhD in History.